Law of the Transmutation between Quality and Quantity

Also known as “the law of quantitative and qualitative changes” and “the law of the transformation of change in quantity into change in quality”. It means that in their process of motion and development, things inevitably exhibit two basic states: quantitative changes and qualitative changes and the transformation of one into another. The law of the law of the transmutation between quality and quantity reveals that quality and quantity are the two aspects of determination that exist in all things and that quantitative change and qualitative change are two basic forms or states that exist in the process of change in all things. To a certain extent, quantitative changes lead to a qualitative change, which again leads to new quantitative changes. In the process of total quantitative change there is partial qualitative change, and in the process of qualitative change there is quantitative expansion. The successive cycle of quantitative and qualitative changes form the law of the law of the transmutation between quality and quantity.

In China, ancient philosophers had spontaneously recognized that quantitative change would bring about qualitative change, such as Lao Zi in the pre-Qin Dynasty, who said, “The giant pine tree grows from a tiny sprout. The journey of a thousand miles starts from beneath your feet.” Marxist philosophy explicitly uses the term “the law of the transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa” and regards it as one of the basic laws of materialist dialectics.

The law of the law of the transmutation between quality and quantity embodies that the development of things is the unity of gradual progress and leap, of continuity and discontinuity. Continuity means that things change only quantitatively, that it is still itself. Discontinuity refers to qualitative change, the leap from the old quality to the new quality, and an “interruption” in the gradual process. The interruption of the gradual process or the interruption of its continuity is not the cessation of the development, but the breaking down of the old qualitative determination and its replacement with the new qualitative determination, giving rise to a new thing. The development of things as a complete process must have continuous accumulation of quantity before there can be an intermittent qualitative leap. Continuity and discontinuity are mutually inclusive. Each step of progress in continuity is a destruction of itself, a move towards its opposite, i.e., discontinuity; it is the accumulation of previous continuity that gives rise to discontinuity, and discontinuity contains continuity. The unity of quantitative change and qualitative change is the unity of gradual changes and leaps, of continuity and discontinuity.

The law of the law of the transmutation between quality and quantity is a universal law of the development of nature, human society and thinking. Contrary to dialectics, metaphysics places quantitative change and qualitative change in an absolute opposition; vulgar evolutionism only acknowledges quantitative change, but not qualitative change; cataclysm or catastrophism only acknowledges qualitative change but denies the quantitative change of things.